A Simple Cup of Coffee
by becca85
Summary: Just a fun little story about six friends meeting up with six Friends in a cozy little coffee shop.


**A/N: This story was written as part of a fanfiction contest. The objective was to use some form of the word "laughs," in conjunction with characters from a sitcom. When I wrote this story, it had been a spur of the moment thing and I hadn't watched **_**Friends**_** in quite some time, so the characters came out a little blah. When I have the time to rewatch the show on DVD, I may revisit this story and spruce it up a bit; at the very least to get the Friends characters closer to their personalities. **

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own the characters or ideas created by David Crane or Marta Kauffman; nor do I own the six club members I tossed in for good measure. I only borrowed them for the entertainment and amusement of my audience.**

**SUMMARY: Just a fun little story about six friends meeting up with six Friends in a cozy little coffee shop.**

**GENRE: Comedy**

**RATING: PG**

**DATE: August 5, 2009**

**::~*~::**

The six friends filed into the coffee shop. It had been a long, hard day for each of them and the only thing on each of their minds was relaxing with nice cups of coffee and enjoying the company.

Chandler was the first thru the door and what he saw in the coffee shop astonished him so greatly that he stopped dead in his tracks. Naturally, the rest of the group plowed right into him, causing him to lurch forward and almost lose his balance. Quickly righting himself, he moved aside and allowed the others entrance to the shop. They all entered and stood just inside the door, staring with open mouths across the main room of Central Perk.

"What are we gonna do?" Joey asked.

"I don't know," Rachel replied. "This has never happened before."

"Who are they?" Ross questioned.

"I've never seen them before in my life," Chandler said. "Certainly never in the coffee shop."

"I—I suppose we could go sit somewhere else," Monica responded, starting to move awkwardly off to some seats near the window.

Phoebe, being her usual boisterous self, loudly exclaimed, "Ooh! Let's go make friends!" Without even waiting to see what the rest of the group thought of the idea, she bounded across the room to introduce herself to the six young women who occupied the seating area traditionally occupied by their own group.

Resigning themselves to Phoebe's exuberance, they followed her over to where she was introducing herself to the young women. Knowing that Phoebe had a tendency to be very blunt on occasion, they hoped to catch her before she said anything potentially embarrassing.

"Hi! I'm Phoebe! So, um, we came in and noticed that you were sitting in our usual spot, but instead of going off to another section to sit like my friends wanted to do, I thought 'Let's make friends with them' and so, here we are!" she cheerfully and unabashedly announced.

The girls stared at her with open mouths and blank stares and at the second mention of "we," slowly turned around together to see the other five friends with beet-red faces filing over to stand next to Phoebe.

Ross stuck out his hand to the nearest girl and introduced himself. In a low voice, he said to the girl, "Sorry about our friend Phoebe. Sometimes she just talks without really thinking about what she is saying. I apologize for her." The girl smiled up at him and told him there was nothing to apologize for.

Taking the cue from Phoebe and Ross, Rachel, Monica, Joey and Chandler introduced themselves in turn. Having gotten the introductions on their side out of the way, they waited for the six young women to introduce themselves.

The girl that Ross had briefly spoken to was Sara. She was wearing white pants, with a black button down casual shirt over a red tank top. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail and she was reclined back in the chair she was sitting in.

The next girl was Jackie and she was wearing faded jeans with a few decorative frayed holes in them and an emerald green off-the-shoulder top. Her shoulder length brown hair was parted down the middle and hanging down, framing her face in a really cute fashion.

Bhav wore a dark blue tee shirt with black velor lounge pants that gave her the appearance of being really comfortable and relaxed. Her black hair she wore long, pulled back only by a barrette.

After Bhav, Nat introduced herself. She had short blonde hair that had some professionally done highlights accentuating it. She wore a bright yellow cami under a black athletic suit with black tennis shoes. She was lounging in an overstuffed armchair with one leg dangling over one of the arms.

Becca was sitting off to the side, drinking water out of a water bottle. She had black slacks on and a white tank top over which she wore a lacy black cardigan. Her dark blonde hair was pulled back into a bun.

Lastly, there was Alei who was wearing black boot cut jeans with a matching black sleeveless jean vest. Give her a cowboy hat with some cowboy boots and she could have been a poster child for a rustic cowgirl. She hated the cowboy/cowgirl look, but she grudgingly admitted that her favorite style of clothing was dangerously close to the style popularized by those western characters.

Bhav motioned around the group and said to the newcomers, "I'm sure if we pull up a couple additional chairs we can all sit together quite comfortably."

Nat and Sara started to get up to procure more chairs, but Chandler and Ross waved them back to their seats and went off to gather a couple of chairs.

After a bit of rearranging, soon all twelve of them were seated in a misshapen circle. They sat in silence for a short time and then Monica decided to break the ice by inquiring where these girls had come from and how they had come to be in Central Perk of all coffee shops in the city.

Nat spoke on behalf of her group and stated that they were currently on a road trip to visit all fifty states having just graduated from California University. They wanted to do a bunch of traveling before they started their respective careers. She mentioned that they had all met when they were freshmen at Cal U and became great friends from the start. It was the summer after their first year at college that they decided on the road trip and had basically put every paycheck into the bank earning interest from their various part-time and full-time jobs. She revealed that they had started out from California, obviously, three months back, and had passed leisurely through the southern states and once they got to Florida they had moved up the Eastern coast until it landed them currently in New York.

Alei added that the "hot" concierge at their hotel had recommended this coffee shop to them because it served really good coffee products and it featured a really comfortable and relaxed atmosphere. Jackie piped up, as she sipped her espresso, that he wasn't wrong on that count. This was one of the best espressos she had ever had.

After hearing about the road trip the girls were on, Phoebe exclaimed that that sounded like an excellent idea. It could be so much fun! Even though her friends rolled their eyes at her delight with the idea, she paid them no heed. Her mind was already reeling with all of the exotic (and not-so-exotic) places that they could visit. Unfortunately, she was the only one to show true enthusiasm for the "supposed" trip. Her other friends could not imagine asking for any extensive time off from their careers right now, especially for a months long road trip.

Having satisfied their curiosities regarding this group of companionable ladies, Rachel decided to tell them a little more about herself, hoping her companions would follow. She told them that she used to work in this very coffee shop back when she was getting on her feet and that she currently worked for a very popular and reputable fashion company. This immediately met with approval and inquiring questions from the majority of the ladies who were interested in fashion to some degree.

Moving on to Monica, she mentioned that she was a chef in a five star restaurant, as she had loved food since she was very young. Monica made it a point of not sharing details from her younger days when her love of food had caused her to be quite a bit higher in weight. She even went so far as to invite them to dine at her restaurant while they were in town.

Ross stated that he was a paleontologist who taught at the local university. He was immediately set upon with tons of questions from Alei and Becca who were both huge Jurassic Park fans and had always expressed desires to learn more about that extinct world from millennia ago.

Once the girls had calmed down, talk moved to Phoebe who said that she was a masseuse and then to Chandler who said that he dealt with statistical factoring and data reconfiguration. This, of course, was met with blank looks from everybody, including those who had known him for years.

"I work with numbers!" he exclaimed. This cleared up the blank looks and changed them more to looks of sympathy as most of them abhorred math and numbers (unless it was the numbers filling the empty spots of a paycheck).

All eyes then turned to Joey, who was lost in thoughts of his own. He was in heaven in the present company. Nine beautiful women to only three single men? The only way it could possibly be better was if there was only one single guy (him) to these nine gorgeous ladies. He sighed inwardly. Rachel cleared her throat to get Joey's attention.

"W-What? What?" Joey looked around the group with confusion evident in his expression.

"You must have been daydreaming again, Joey. We were telling our new friends a little bit about ourselves."

Nonchalantly, he tossed his head back as he replied, "Oh, I'm an actor."

Sara and Nat leaned forward as both exclaimed, "Really? Have you been in anything really well known? Have you met many famous actors?" Joey was about to get affronted by such ignorance on the parts of these young ladies, but then thought, _What the heck? I know enough to know that I have a ways to go before I get to superstar status._

It was around this time that conversation broke off between the twelve of them and settled into smaller groups. Alei and Becca chatted with Ross about anything extinct. Sara and Nat were busily engaged in finding out the extent of Joey's stardom and who he has met in the acting world. Phoebe and Monica talked with Jackie about a wide variety of things. Jackie seemed to thoroughly enjoy Phoebe's quirkiness. Bhav was having fun conversing with Chandler about the New York area and what recommendations he had about visiting the sights of the city. Rachel announced that she needed to be go back to work to retrieve something she had forgotten and there were lots of goodbyes called after her as she left.

After sitting and conversing in this fashion for about forty minutes, the group of ladies felt it was time to get back to their hotel. They had made arrangements to hit one of the prominent night clubs in the area that they had heard so much about. Apparently, it had just opened within the last month and was the talk of the town.

These two groups had gotten on so well together, that they decided to exchange phone numbers and email addresses to keep in touch. Monica let them know that she would seek Rachel's permission and then forward her info on to them. The girls' group even went so far as to invite the other group to come with them that evening and have some fun.

With many fond farewells, the girls left. After they had gone, Joey leaned back in his chair with a satisfied expression on his face. Monica and Chandler watched him and then burst out laughing when he asked what everyone's plans were for the evening.

"Joey, we can read you like an open book!" Monica laughed. "Is that all you ever think about?"

Acting offended, Joey retorted, "What? Can I help it that my mind wanders when there are hot girls around?" and more seriously, "Come on guys, let's go tonight!"

Ross replied, "I don't think that's my kind of thing nowadays."

Chandler mocked Ross for that. "Could you _be_ any more boring? I think it would be kind of fun. Chatting with those girls was definitely a trip down memory lane." Chandler started getting his own thoughtful expression on his face. "College. Those were some fun days…" Snapping back, he voted for going to the club.

Finally, after discussing it between themselves, they all agreed that it would make for an exciting night. Gathering up their stuff, they headed towards the door. Monica called Rachel on her cell phone to let them know of their plans and Rachel enthusiastically agreed to come with. She said she would meet Monica back at the apartment.

Leaving Central Perk, they all headed back to their respective apartments to get ready for what would come to be a very memorable night.


End file.
